]]>Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on January 7, 2017, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

Happy New Year. What’s the outlook for your upcoming year?

As we enter the new year, both in our personal lives and in our world of content, it seems (if my Facebook feed and the omnipresent prediction posts I’m reading have any accuracy) that there is at least a gut-level optimism that this year will be better than the last.

What about our content strategies? What about our careers as content practitioners? Are we ready for what lies ahead? This is the time of year when we will see tons of articles and conference sessions about “future proofing” our strategy. Headlines will proclaim 2017 the year that artificial intelligence changes the trajectory of our strategy. We’ll be warned: Personalize or die. We’ll be pressed to replace our technology to accommodate the internet of things, virtual reality, and data mining.

Our job is to listen. To understand. And to know when to ignore.

One of the challenges that we all face in getting ready for the future is to decide when to learn something new and when to nail down the basics of what we already have working. It’s tempting to double down on the new. It is, after all, new. It dangles the enticement and promise of the glittering unknown (Finally, maybe, thesolutiontowhatailsus!) even while it thwacks the marketer’s fear of missing out (Wait! Don’tleavemebehind!). The new is both carrot and stick.

To use a more timely metaphor, the Ghost of Content Future seduces us with its smiles and whispers (Followme!) even as it jangles its chains. We want to follow. And we don’t. Should we, or shouldn’t we?

As leaders in our organizations – whether we hold positions of authority or are coming up through the ranks – we must balance the questions of whether and when to chase future technology against the need to master what we’re already doing. If we’re not nailing the basics, it doesn’t matter how fast the world seems to be getting ahead of us. We can fail at the new stuff, too.

One of my advisory clients – a big financial-services firm that’s redesigning its web site – asked the other day whether to deploy a bot. “A technology vendor promised that its new technology would place a machine-learning bot on our web site and blog,” my client said. “The bot would automatically personalize the experience as people were consuming content.” I asked how many pieces of content they had planned for the web site. She said five or six hundred. I said, “Why don’t you get the new web site up first. Then we can talk about a bot.”

In the immortal words of rapper Ice T, “The new kids can rap, but they’re scared of the stage. That takes time and practice. Mastery of the stage is the art of an MC. When you take the time to practice and master the stage, that’s when rap becomes more than just rhymes with words.”

Ice T is talking about mastering the basics. That’s wise advice for marketers too. Even when we face – as we do every day – the Ghost of Content Future.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place tomorrow, March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Register now!

]]>From the Robert Rose archives: Zen and the Art of Content Maintenancehttps://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/robert-rose-archives-zen-art-content-maintenance/
Mon, 12 Mar 2018 13:00:50 +0000http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/?p=2957Creating quality content can be a struggle between the romantic idea of popularity and a depth of substance.

]]>Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on October 8, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

How do you define quality content?

Ask a movie studio or a television executive, and you may hear something like this: “Quality content is that which attracts the biggest audience.” In other words, the content itself matters less than the number of people who consume it. This attitude certainly accounts for much of reality television.

Ask a subject-matter expert, and you may find yourself on the receiving end of a fount of knowledge. These folks might say, “Quality content is in-depth, technical, and comprehensive.”

Ask a marketing practitioner, and the answer may sound more like “Quality content is that which moves people to take a desired action, like buy, subscribe, or share a link.”

Ask a technical writer, and the response might be “Quality content simplifies the complex, transferring knowledge to the audience.” These content creators want to teach something – popularity be damned.

When it comes to creating quality content in our businesses, many of us increasingly face tension between the romantic idea of popularity on the one hand – views, clicks, positive comments, shares, etc. – and, on the other, a depth of substance that some people in the audience may find inaccessible. In other words, if we define content quality in terms of its substance, won’t we have to settle for less popularity? Isn’t this the inherent tension between journalistic content and content produced by a brand?

If we define quality one way, we may find ourselves always chasing after blockbusters. If we define it another way, we may find ourselves always settling for creating the equivalent of critically acclaimed movies that few people see.

The tension between popularity and substance reminds me of one of the many great ideas in the book ZenandtheArtofMotorcycleMaintenance. This book, among other things, highlights the folly of defining quality in terms of just one thing. What would it mean to talk about a quality motorcycle ride? It is not as simple as the romantic appeal of being in the moment, enjoying the wind in our hair as we fly along the highway. This romantic aspect of motorcycle riding may be what makes it popular, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The motorcycle must be kept in great shape—greased and oiled and other unromantic things that require deep knowledge and practical behind-the-scenes analysis and expertise. As the author, Robert Pirsig, says, “Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic.”

You can’t have a quality ride on a motorcycle that hasn’t been properly maintained. At the same time, without understanding the joy of riding, there is no purpose to maintaining the motorcycle. A zen approach – nondualistic thinking – is called for. Quality isn’t either-or.

The choice between popularity and substance is a false choice.

Think about content quality in motorcycle terms. The content you create becomes part of the audience’s experience: the ride, let’s say. If you want people to have an outstanding ride – the kind that leaves bugs on their teeth – you have to care about clicks, views, comments, and shares (because that’s how you know they had a great experience and that’s how more people get to have it). At the same time, you have to care about delivering sufficient depth, breadth, and accuracy (because that’s what makes the experience outstanding in the first place).

Here’s another way to say it. If you aren’t interested in appealing to as wide an audience as is practical, you have no reason to pursue depth or substance. Conversely, if you aren’t willing to deliver appropriate depth and substance, your content won’t reach as wide an audience as you might like.

What kind of ride are you giving your audience? How do you know? Is your content due for a quality tune-up? If so, how will you define quality?

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Our event is happening next week! Register now!

What is AI? What is machine learning? I heard one of the best definitions when listening to a recent episode of Taking Note, An Evernote podcast. Before his SXSW 2018 presentation, Anirban Kundu, Evernote’s CTO, sat down with podcast host Forrest Bryant.

Says Kundu: AI is “The point at which machines don’t have be told explicitly what to do to be able to do them. Machines to begin to behave like humans for certain functions. It doesn’t have to happen for all functions in one shot, but being able to do it in certain categories of things. Machine learning happens to be a specific subset of AI that uses statistics as a way to infer commonalities that exist in the patterns of what people do or how people interact with something, or even the actions that people perform in a certain thing. it’s finding those insights based on a tremendous amount of data and inferring from that data.

“In the past machine learning has been more focused on where humans have had to tell machines, “Hey, I want you to look at these categories of things.” But even that is beginning to essentially reduce it in terms of its importance with technologies like deep learning getting into the equation. So, we’re getting closer to AI becoming a full-fledged idea where it can make our lives tremendously better.

“AI is basically the form where Machines can solve problems that we don’t explicitly have to ask them to.”

Take a listen to the last 22 minutes of this podcast to hear this great conversation. Some great examples on how AI is helping us today – spam filters in emails, Alexa and voice search and much more.

While I could have transcribed this entire podcast because I learned so much, I was particularly fascinated by this closing statement from Kundu:

“How do we democratize machine learning and a how do we make it available not just as something that is sci-fi based or in the tech sector? How do you make it available in every facet of our lives? Because I believe that it has an opportunity to reduce a lot of the regular rigor that people have in their lives to a significant degree.”

As we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018, this conversation for AI made me look forward to our big event next week at the Future of Content bootcamp. Check out this amazing agenda:

This session will address next generation content strategies such as AI/machine learning and VR. The bootcamp will consist of two presentations covering the myths, challenges, and real opportunities around these much-hyped technologies.

9:30am-10:30am – Session Sponsored by Acrolinx

The Art and Science of Being Deliberate: Making Content Governance Active
Andrew Bredenkamp, Founder and CEO, Acrolinx @abredenkamp

In this workshop, we’re going to talk about content governance. But it’s different than what you might expect. Governance gets a bad reputation for being restrictive. But for the purpose of this workshop, we’ll look at it through the content owner’s eyes. Restrictive practices are really just frameworks for success.

The session will:

Explain governance, and place a bet. Attendees that don’t think they practice content governance will leave with a new view on the topic.

Illustrate what being deliberate can do to improving the overall content governance approach, which will lead to a new term for most: Active Content Governance.

Talk about how to achieve Active Content Governance. Because by this point in the session, you’re going to be excited about Active Content Governance, and you’re going to want to start adding pieces of it to your process immediately.

Tell a story. But not a made-up story. This is a true story about Maurice. And a way to leverage AI to improve both the governance process Maurice manages, as well as the end-to-end content creation process.

At the end of this session, you will be ready to take your content program to the next level.

Artificial intelligence has reached peak hype stage, but is it possible that its potential to transform marketing, and your career, is even greater than advertised? Go beyond the splashy headlines to explore a framework that makes AI approachable and actionable for every marketer. AI can be your competitive advantage. It can give you superpowers. But, you have to know how to get started. This session walks you through the 5P’s of AI model and presents a collection of use cases and technologies to make your marketing more (artificially) intelligent.

Explore how AI is augmenting marketers’ knowledge and capabilities, and altering consumer expectations for brand experiences.

Learn about the AI-powered marketing technology companies that are enabling a more intelligent future.

In the meantime, listen to Evernote’s podcast! I’m a big fan of the entire podcast, but this particular episode was particularly valuable before ICC. Also, check out CMI’s latest ebook based on Paul Roetzer’s CMWorld 2018 session on artificial intelligence:

]]>From the Robert Rose archives: Keep the Purpose in Repurposinghttps://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/robert-rose-archives-keep-purpose-repurposing/
Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:00:27 +0000http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/?p=2954To approach content in the right way is to develop both the channel and the content for a particular audience and purpose.

]]>Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on September 3, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

Repurposing content is a complex activity that’s often misunderstood. I’ve written before about how I’ve changed my answer when people ask how much content they should create. I used to say, “As much as you can and still have it be great.” I came to see this as bad advice because it assumed that the only thing we’re doing is creating content. I’ve since changed my answer to “As little as you can and still have the impact you desire.”

When I first published my revised answer in this very newsletter, someone sent me a note asking, “How does this square with the need to produce continually?” It’s a great point. Certainly, part of the answer lies in repurposing content. To minimize the amount of new content you need to create, you consider ways to repurpose what you have. You spread great ideas across audiences and platforms for the widest distribution possible. If you’re not careful, though, repurposing can go astray, leading to bad content experiences.

This happened with a client recently. A technology firm I worked with had created a channel (a blog and white-paper program) targeted to CIOs. The content was excellent: high level, strategic, and visionary. Then came pressure from other parts of the organization to repurpose this content for lower-level directors of technology. At first, the team simply added some detailed tips and tricks to the original CIO pieces. Eventually, unfortunately, the team stopped creating content specifically for CIOs. The logic went like this: “Since we’re sending our content to both audiences anyway, let’s just create all our pieces for both.”

By trying to suit everyone, this team suited no one. Their one-size-fits-all content was too low level and not visionary enough for the CIOs. At the same time, the content was too esoteric and unapproachable for the directors.

Audiences can’t be averaged. Neither can purposes.

To approach content in the right way is to develop both the channel and the content for a particular audience and purpose. It may make sense to reuse, repackage, or repurpose that content across channels or audiences – if you honor the verbs that follow all those “re’s.” The content must have a different use, a different package, and a different purpose each time.

There’s a reason we don’t call it recontenting.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Can you believe it’s March? Our event is right around the corner! Register now!

]]>Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on July 9, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

One of the phrases that seems to have taken up permanent residence in the world of benefits you get from content technology is “consistent brand experience across channels.” I see it everywhere. “Buyoursoftware, andyoucanenableaconsistentbrandexperienceacrossmultipledigitalchannels!”

But one of the biggest content challenges I encounter with clients is at the heart of this word consistent. In many a business I speak with, people have either spent or are planning to spend lots of money and time attempting to reuse the exact same content across multiple interfaces in an effort to create a scalable, consistent brand experience.

Now, there’s a place for identical content reuse. But I see many businesses taking reuse to ridiculous extremes. One company I met with created a digital content strategy that leveraged the lowest common denominator – usually defined by some character-count or space limitation. That team constrained what they wrote for all the channels according to the limitations of the tightest one. When we define what will appear in every channel by what fits in a right-rail widget of our website, we are overthinking content reuse.

That kind of consistency does our audiences a disservice.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Foolish – a word that’s often left out of the quotation – is the key word. This hobgoblin gets the better of us marketers when we aim to deliver sameness everywhere in the name of “consistent experience.”

Instead, what we must deliver consistently across channels is this: differentiating value. Ironically, to accomplish this, we usually must take the time to create different content for each channel. Doing so delivers the optimization that marketers crave.

When you develop a comprehensive, holistic, and, dare I say, intelligent content strategy, you must consider which content it makes sense to reuse verbatim and which content you ought to change to fit the unique aspects of each channel. Either way, you can deliver an unfoolish consistency – content that consistently differentiates your business.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Can you believe it’s March? Our event is right around the corner! Register now!

]]>From the Robert Rose archives: Sometimes the Penknife Is Mightier Than the Swordhttps://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/robert-rose-archives-sometimes-penknife-mightier-than-sword/
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:00:37 +0000http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/?p=2928Creation of content-driven experiences needs to be as easy and flexible as yesterday’s media buy.

]]>Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on April 30, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

Something about spring’s better weather and lighter days seems to be compelling marketers to want to switch out their content management systems. In the spring, I have no fewer than 10 conversations with clients about their content management needs. It’s ironic that just when people should be figuring out ways to spend more time in the sunshine, they’re looking for a new project that’s going to chain them to their cubes until winter blows in.

These days, any number of types of content management or collaboration solutions are available. Wikipedia identifies over 200 “notable content management systems” – and this list doesn’t yet include many of the burgeoning number of content marketing and collaboration solutions we’re seeing in the market.

The challenge that I’m seeing more and more this spring is a bit different. The content practitioners I’m speaking with are looking at implementing some kind of strategic content practice as a functional department within the business. In some cases, it’s a nascent content marketing group looking to create new customer experiences. In other cases, it’s a content strategy group looking to organize better governance and architectural processes around all the content being produced digitally or otherwise.

In every case, the complaint is the same. These groups are looking to deploy a light, easy, flexible tool that will allow them to collaborate on content for their purposes while integrating into the larger infrastructure. But then we get to the rub. Usually, the organization already has an enterprise tool managing their web content. This battlesword-ready software product cost the organization hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to set up. And senior management rightly wants to know why this million-dollar product can’t handle a simple blog, or an editorial workflow, or a content calendar.

In fact, that existing tool could do the job, but it would be painful. One person told me (this is a real quote), “The implementation of our simple new blog goes into the enterprise web CMS queue, and we’re looking at an eight-month wait until we can get something up.” Another told me, “We’d like to change our web CMS to handle editorial calendaring and collaboration, but the tech guys tell us that it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to reconfigure our CMS workflow to do that.”

This is usually when content and marketing practitioners curse the sword (their existing tool) and conspire on ways to bring in a lighter technology to get something done.

In my keynote at ContentTECH this year, I spoke to a model that I’ve used to align the use of the more enterprise, governance-focused technology vs. the lightweight technology that might help the organization work in more flexible ways. The thrust of that model is that both sides of this discussion have to get beyond the notion of a single tool having dominion over the enterprise.

In other words, just because we have an enterprise CMS – a battlesword of a tool – doesn’t mean we should use it to manage all our content. Sometimes it’s fine to use a penknife, as my grandfather used to do when he needed to fix a loose screw.

Sometimes, the smart move may be to launch a content marketing effort on WordPress to test the validity of our assumptions, get buy-in, and see if a content platform will work. That’s not overbuying technology – it’s bringing in the right tool for the job. In today’s fast-shifting world, the creation of content-driven experiences needs to be as easy and flexible as yesterday’s media buy. We will try, and fail, at many of these efforts. Let’s take a smart approach and open the penknife when appropriate – and save the battlesword for the big job for which it’s meant.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Our event is quickly approaching – Register now!

]]>From the Robert Rose archives: What Is Personal?https://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/robert-rose-archives-what-personal/
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 14:00:40 +0000http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/?p=2926Content meant for a wider group – not just one person – but delivered in a way that creates value specifically for a higher percentage of people in that wider group enables a company to rise above the noise.

Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on March 26, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

What was the best piece of personalized content you received in the last week? If you’re like eight of the 10 people I chatted with as part of what like to call a “walking the dog” survey I did while attending Adobe Summit, you don’t remember.

What was the best piece of content you received in the last week? When I asked this question, seven of the 10 did remember, and, in almost every case, the content itself wasn’t personalized at all. It was relevant. It was exceptional content. It was immediately shared. But it was personalized – adapted for the person – in only one case.

I ask these questions because something struck me both at Adobe Summit and in a conversation I had with a potential client this week. Personalization of content is now frequently mentioned as the biggest priority when it comes to the strategic content agenda. More than a few times, speakers and vendors were mentioning this study, which appeared in eMarketer last week, identifying a “customer-centric focus” far and away the biggest priority for this year.

Now, the results of my extremely statistically irrelevant study aside, this is something I see a lot of. Businesses often conflate the idea of being customer-centric with personalizing. They believe that personalization means that the content will be more personal. It’s not true. Personalization – certainly at the level that most businesses can operate – is rarely personal, and it simply doesn’t scale.

Besides, the more personalized a piece of content is, the less likely it is to be shared. Think about it: When was the last time you shared a piece of content that was truly personalized for you? What we want to share – what we find joy in and thus remember as an experience – is seeing ourselves in content that would be relevant and extraordinary for a wider group.

When your audience wonders, How did anyone know I needed to see this right now? – that’s when you win. So, especially for content strategies focused on marketing purposes, I’d like us to think about audience-focused or “persona-ized” content instead. That’s where I’d like to see our priority. This is content that is meant for a wider group – not just one person – but is delivered in a way that creates value specifically for a higher percentage of people in that wider group.

It’s delivering the personal, rather than the personalized. Personal content is what enables a company to rise above the noise while also avoiding the need to scale to every single platform that emerges. In short, instead of focusing on delivering the right message to the right person at the right time, successful content strategies create the right value for the right audience in its time.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Register now!

]]>From the Robert Rose archives: Needs and Wants and Shoulds and Couldshttps://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/robert-rose-archives-needs-wants-shoulds-coulds/
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 14:00:09 +0000http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/?p=2924The purpose content extends beyond filling needs or helping customers succeed. We must also consider giving content so they demand more from us.

Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on March 19, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

Intelligent Content Conference 2017 is still fresh in my memory. What a wonderful group.

In my keynote address, I asked people to look up from their day-to-day activities, take note of the landscape, and decide where they wanted their careers to go. I encouraged them to pave their own way by becoming more strategic in the business and not just learning to facilitate content widgets more fluidly, efficiently, or even effectively in the business. The career path of today’s content practitioner will be paved with efforts to synthesize meaning, share wisdom, and add strategic business value.

At the conference, my talk inspired a wonderful hallway conversation I had with an attendee from a big B2B enterprise. She talked about wanting her team to focus its content on customer needs. Her point is understandable. One of the core focuses of content, and even our broader communications strategy, is to “meet the needs” of customers. We think that if we become customer-centric and make our customers successful – and relieve their pain – then, yesthen, we will finally be successful.

But I said I was skeptical.

“When you think about people’s needs,” I said, “you need to ask yourself what you already have that can help. The harder thing is aiming to meet the wants of your customer. That’s harder because those wants usually require something that you haven’t created yet.”

Now, to be clear, understanding the customers’ pain points and the ways that our products or services (or content) can relieve those pain points is something we should do. In fact, it’s something we must do. It’s table stakes.

Renowned author Clayton Christensen has developed a framework called Jobs to Be Done. At its core, the Jobs to Be Done framework states that people buy products and services to get a “job” done. And “success” of the job is what creates satisfaction with the customer. The classic example of this is that people don’t buy a hammer or a nail, they buy a hole in their wall. That’s what constitutes success. Helping customers achieve success – meeting their needs – should be an important part of the content we create.

We also have to go beyond meeting needs. As Seth Godin said years ago, “There are things that people vitally need … and yet providing it is no guarantee you’ll find demand.”

What if we could also create things that met the wants of our customers? This can be a powerful way to approach developing content that feeds every customer experience we create. We have the opportunity to create differentiating content-driven experiences that are separatefromourproductsandservices and may even target different audiences than the product users.

In other words, the purpose of our content can extend beyond filling needs or helping customers succeed with our products or services. We must also consider what content we could give them that they would want so that they would demand more from us.

This is hard. Templates don’t exist. We may get it wrong. But there’s great potential in seeing the customer as not just someone who needs our product or service but also as someone who wants many things in life.

This is the opportunity. We can live our content life in needs and shoulds, or we can look at wants and coulds – and differentiate ourselves and our brand in the process.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Early bird rates end TOMORROW, February 16. Register now!

]]>From the Robert Rose archives: The First One to Commit to Value Winshttps://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/robert-rose-archives-first-commit-value-wins/
Mon, 12 Feb 2018 14:00:09 +0000http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/?p=2922To create an engaged subscriber/lead/opportunity, why not give audiences the valuable content and THEN ask for their information so that they can receive future content just like it.

Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on March 5, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

This week I’m visiting a client in Hartford, Connecticut. I needed a taxi from my hotel to the client’s location. Easy enough. The hotel bellman grabs a taxi from the street and I’m on my way. As we drive, the cabbie makes small talk: where are you from, how long are you staying, the weather, all that. Then he asks, “Do you have a ride to the airport tomorrow?”

Now, any of you that travel frequently for business will attest, this is not uncommon. This exchange usually ends up with you casually taking one of the cabbie’s business cards and him telling you, “Call me if you want a ride.” Usually, we don’t call. Why? Because it’s easier to go down to the lobby and grab a cab that’s already there.

This is where the story gets a bit different. When we got to my destination, this cabbie did, indeed, hand me his business card – but then he said, “I’ll set it up for you.” He asked for my first name, my cell number, and the time I’d like to be picked up. “You have my card. Unless I hear differently from you, I will pick you up at 6 a.m. at the hotel.”

I’ll come back to this story in a moment. First, I’d like to point out that it reminds me of the trouble many businesses have getting content into the hands of customers. The client I was visiting was struggling with the idea of gated versus ungated content. The internal debate was, “What kind of content should we require customers to provide information for before we give them access?” This question isn’t just relegated to marketing. My friend and CMI Creative Director Joe Kalinowski had a recent interaction with an Apple store. He called to see if a particular battery was in stock. Before they would answer the question, they asked him to provide detailed information to “verify him.” Similarly, last week, I went to the website of a software company that I use for music production. To retrieve the technical documentation, I had to “prove” that I owned that product by putting in the serial number and my personal information. Even if I didn’t own the product, what damage could I have done by viewing the manual?

We content producers often default to extracting value from people before we commit to providing value to them. As I told the marketers at my client, if we want to create an engaged subscriber/lead/opportunity, why not give audiences the valuable content and THEN ask for their information so that they can receive future content just like it. Yes, it might reduce the number of conversions. But think of what it tells you when people do say yes. Why not give away the technical documentation, the manuals, and the detailed specifications? Do we really have a good reason for hiding that content behind a registration? Maaaaaaybe the answer is yes, but let’s at least ask ourselves the question.

We come by our you-give-first mindset honestly. That’s how most business transactions work: customers get the product or service – the value – only after they hand over their money. It’s rare that you pay after you’ve received the value, although some businesses do work that way. Imagine giving your order to a waiter in a fine-dining establishment and him returning with your first round of drinks – and the check – saying, “If you’ll please pay up, I’ll put your order in.” Weird right?

Another business that is structured with the value due from the customer at the end is the taxi business. And that brings us to the conclusion of my story. This morning I received a text from the cabbie at 5:50 a.m. saying he was outside the hotel. “Take your time,” he said. When I went outside, he greeted me, put my bag in the car, and away we went. I paid him, as usual, at the destination.

It’s a subtle thing. It’s just a taxi ride, after all. But here’s the thing. I wanted to pay him. I wanted to give him a big tip. I wanted to keep his business card for my next trip. He had anticipated my need and arranged to take care of it. He had driven to the hotel, refused other possible fares, and waited for me to come out. He had provided noteworthy service before asking anything of me, trusting that I wouldn’t fail him.

He had committed to providing value first.

What would happen if you did the same with your content?

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Early bird rates end this Friday, February 16. Register now!

Editor’s note: This piece was published in CMI’s Content Strategy newsletter on February 27, 2016, but it’s as relevant today as it was when it was originally posted. We will be publishing previous posts from Robert each week on the ICC blog as we prepare for Intelligent Content Conference 2018.

To keep Robert’s message intact and in context, we didn’t change language saying “last week”, etc., but please note these are pulled from the archives. Thank you and enjoy!

Combobulate. I love that word. Let me explain.

Last week the BBC did something revolutionary for a 93-year-old media company. It dropped its channel-based television and radio divisions and reorganized itself around “content and audience-led divisions.” Basically, it will have two main divisions – BBC Entertain and BBC Inform – which themselves will be made up of new divisions, such as BBC Youth and other audience-focused groups.

Now, does this mean that you won’t be able to watch BBC on that thing that is connected to the coaxial cable on your wall? Or does this mean that you won’t be able to listen to the BBC on that box that connects to radio waves? Or course not. The BBC is simply recognizing that the lines between device and service are blurring more substantially than ever.

Before digital, of course, the lines were so clear that no one even considered the possibility of them blurring. The device defined the service, and the service defined the device. TV, for example, was both the device used to consume the content and the kind of signal used to deliver the content. People eventually differentiated between delivery methods – “cable TV” or “satellite TV” or “digital TV” – but the device was the device. TV signals (and programs) went to a TV. Radio signals (and programs) went to a radio.

TV teams created TV experiences. Radio teams created radio experiences.

Today’s devices and experiences have come unhooked from delivery methods. It’s no longer simple to answer questions like these:

What is TV? Is it a device or a service?

Is radio an appliance or a way of receiving audio content?

What is mobile? Is it a phone or any device that’s untethered? It’s certainly not about screen size. The new iPad Pro has the same screen size as the Packard Bell desktop computer that I used until 2001 (yes, I know).

What is social media? Is it defined by the applications that have the ability to connect with other people? Or is it just connecting with communities online? For example, is reddit a publishing network or a social media platform?

The answers to these questions are best argued over a great glass of red or a nice pale ale. My point is that the BBC has recognized something that’s becoming increasingly important for all businesses to wake up to. We content professionals must stop organizing ourselves around channels, platforms, and outputs as we’ve done for the last decade. We have to stop matching new digital channels stride for stride, one team on this channel, another on that. We can’t keep piling on new output-based teams: tech docs and brand and PR and customer service and social and social CRM and web and blog and email and and and.

This realization hit me full-on two weeks ago when I was helping a large retail company construct a content marketing approach. They were struggling with which channels the content marketing team should own. I suggested that they change their mindset and construct teams around audiences rather than around products, channels, or technology platforms. As we sketched out this approach on the white board, the pieces just fit. Suddenly, content became cross-functional, cross-product, and cross-channel. The goal of repurposing their content and communicating it across all these silos fell into place. We had discovered – as the sign in the Milwaukee Airport says – a place to recombobulate.

As we all think about ways to drive content forward strategically, we can learn a lot from that 93-year-old media company. We too can redraw the lines within our organizations to reflect the blurring of lines all around us.

Let’s combobulate around content.

Are you looking for more from Robert or do you want to learn more about content strategy? Join us at Intelligent Content Conference 2018, taking place March 20-22, 2018 in Las Vegas. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 off current pricing. Early bird rates end NEXT WEEK on February 16. Register now!